Ambassador to South Sudan: Who is Susan Page?

Susan D. Page was nominated by President Barack Obama in August to become the first U.S. ambassador to the newly created state of South Sudan, which gained its independence on July 9, 2011. She had already spent several years working on negotiations for the nation’s secession from Sudan.

Page received an AB from the University of Michigan in 1986 and a JD from Harvard Law School in 1989. She then spent a year in Nepal on a Rotary International fellowship researching children’s and women’s rights issues.

She worked briefly as a lawyer in private practice and then began her career at the State Department in 1991, working on arms deals as an attorney-adviser for politico-military affairs in the Office of the Legal Adviser.

Later, she was senior legal adviser and chief of the Justice and Human Rights Unit for the United Nations Development Programme in Rwanda.

From 2002 to 2005, Page was the legal advisor to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development Secretariat for Peace in the Sudan. This was followed by her assignment as director of the Rule of Law and Judicial System Advisory Unit at the UN Peace Support Mission to the Sudan (2005-2007).

Prior to her nomination, Page was Regional Director for Southern and East Africa at the National Democratic Institute and then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs.